Behavioral data regarding locations of event attendees throughout an event area provides important insights for event exhibitors and event area operators. Conventional techniques include event exhibitors merely scanning a barcode printed on a name badge of an event attendee. But this technique fails to provide sufficient data, such as data about the length of time the event attendee visited the exhibitor, event attendees who passed by the exhibitor but did not stop, and the like. Moreover, conventional techniques based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices are impractical due to human body interference with the signal, deployment costs of reader devices, and the like.
Conventional beacon-based techniques, such as Bluetooth beacons, also have shortcomings. For example, conventional beacon systems include beacon devices located at locations throughout an event area, such as at exhibitor booths, session rooms, and common areas (e.g., lobbies, etc.). These systems rely on event attendees carrying mobile computing devices (e.g., smartphones, tablet computing devices, etc.) that execute an application for receiving the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the beacons. The executing applications on the event attendee mobile devices then upload the data to server computing devices in a cloud environment. Shortcomings of this technique include reliance on event attendees to download and run the application and the subsequent reduced battery life of attendee mobile computing devices. Moreover, the application executing on event attendee mobile devices may present security risks to the device and/or collected data.